Exit Interviews

[KristineS]

Almost every company I've worked for has had in its handbook the fact that the company does exit interviews. Not one company has ever done an interview with me when I left.

I think exit interviews can be very useful. They can help you pinpoint your company weaknesses and analyze why you may not be retaining employees.

Does your company do exit interviews? If you own the company, will you do exit interviews if and when an employee leaves?

[vangogh]

I've never experienced one, but I never understood why as an employee I would have much interest in an exit interview. If you've just let me go I'm not exactly going to be in the mood to help you figure out what's wrong with your company and if I've decided to leave I probably just want out as soon as possible.

Usually when I've left a company on my own it's had a lot to do with them not listening to suggestions while I was working there.

[KristineS]

I guess, if the parting is friendly, it would be nice to know why people are moving on. Is it money, or lack of communication or some other reason entirely. Employee retention saves companies money. If you know why your employees are leaving, perhaps you can fix those problems and lose less employees.

Of course, this presupposes that the company views employees as assets and not as disposable.

[vangogh]

If the parting is friendly I agree. I'd think most employee exits aren't the friendliest. If a company lets you go when you still want to work there it's not friendly and if you're leaving because you were unhappy with the company it's not friendly either.

There are certainly cases where people leave a company and everyone is still on good terms and in that case it makes sense to ask for an exit interview.

I've seen companies that require them after firing you. As though you're really going to want to help under that circumstance.

[KristineS]

If you're being fired or downsized or whatever they choose to call it, I can't see the point of an exit interview. You're not going to wish the company well or have much that is good to say about it. Why put everyone through that?

[billbenson]

My last one, a startup company was failing. I could see it. They had me fly to South America and had some paperwork they wanted me to sign. They also wanted account info, and because I was a remote employee they needed to get computer stuff etc back.

The one thing I don't know - they had some paper they wanted me to sign. Before they showed it to me I said "wouldn't it be easeier if I just quit? They said ok. They also said in that case it was best if they didn't show me that paper. I have no idea what it was. They may have actually been acting on my behalf, as I had know the guy that was firing me (company president) for 20 years.

However, one thing about doing it properly is I maintained a friendship or at least cordiality and can use them as a reference. My situation was different though, in that I had a 20 year or more business relationship with the guy that was firing me stretching through various companies. This situation would be a lot different for an non professional type of position.

It's not that great, though, to have to get on an airplane, fly 5k miles for the sole purpose of getting fired. The company went belly up 6 months later.

[orion_joel]

I have only been asked to complete an exit interview once, but not as an actual meeting as a colour in the answer you choose with 2 or 3 inches to explain an answer.

I found in this case the questions were not really appropriate for the reason i left and never end up returning the paperwork. Which was supposed to be anonymous anyway. Which in reality would have been useless in identifying the true reason i left, which had nothing to do with company policy money or anything more then two mangers trying to make me feel insignificant. I was however in a position that they needed me more then i needed them, and although not intentional when i left they were severely short staffed, due to a number of others leaving due to probably the same two managers. To bad the exit interview didn't cover something like this.

[KristineS]

I think a lot of companies don't really want answers to the questions of why people leave or what they could do to make things better. I also think that some owners and managers delude themselves into thinking that their company is the best place to work that ever existed. They refuse to see the evidence that's right in front of them. That's why they don't do exit interviews that have any meaning. They don't want to know what's wrong or why people leave.

It's really rather sad.

[orion_joel]

I kind of get the impression from the exit interview they gave me it was more about getting some stats more then really wanting to know the true reason for leaving.

[Ad-Vice_Man]

I've had them, primarily when working with giant corporations who have HR teams. It was pretty much pro-forma type stuff, they did ask why i was leaviing and what I thought they could do to make XYZ a better place to work. But mostly it was about severing the relationship, as in turning in keys, equipment, fillinf out benefits related paperwork etc.